Accidental Courier

Pat Polinger, co-owner of Vidiots, the Santa Monica video store and coffeehouse, joined an arts-oriented tour of the Soviet Union earlier this month, looking for two weeks of “fun and merriment.” She got an unexpected bonus--political intrigue. She helped smuggle out video footage--possibly the first to reach the United States--of the brutal suppression by Russian soldiers of a peaceful demonstration in Soviet Georgia on April 9.

The incident at Tbilisi, the capitol of Soviet Georgia, continues to rock Kremlin politics, according to recent news reports, with President Mikhail S. Gorbachev promising a full investigation. The number of dead has officially been put at 20. Dissidents--supporters of an autonomous Georgian state--and humanitarian groups claim many more were killed, many allegedly through the use of toxic gas.

Polinger, who returned to Santa Monica on June 17, said the 40 minutes of video footage, shot with two cameras from different vantage points, shows soldiers and tanks closing in on thousands of protesters outside a government building, firing canisters of gas and beating demonstrators with shovels as they sing.

A Georgian activist gave the videotape to members of the tour group, pleading that it be offered to U.S. TV news agencies. Carrying video equipment for tourist purposes, they mixed the videotape with their own and smuggled it out.

Polinger said the footage is “grainy but watchable” and restorable. At this writing, she was planning to submit the videotape for possible TV broadcast.